collaboration

  • Beyond Possible

    A Goethe-Institut Virtual Partnership Residency with Jova Lynne

    Winner: EXP Award: Goethe-Institut Chicago

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    For Beyond Possible, HYENAZ and Jova Lynne gathered field recordings and visual materials in Berlin and Detroit during July and August 2020, with the intention of finding and creating sanctuary. Each took a parallel journey in each of our cities, making three stops: 1-Fire/Hearth, 2-Water and 3-Cosmos. In each of these stations tgey used the following methodology for gathering our sound and visual samples:

    Methodology

    Grounding. Find a comfortable position where you can relax your body into the location. Think about grounding. If you feel comfortable, come as physically close to the ground as possible. Lie on the ground. Let whatever parts of your body that touch the ground sink deeper into the ground. Concentrate on rooting. Put your sound device on the ground and mm press record. Capture the ambient sounds located there.

    Deep Listening. While letting the recording run, think about the sound that you hear. What sounds do you hear closest to you? What is more distant? What is even further away? Take note. You can also move your body in small micro-orientations to signal that you receive the sound. It could be an arm movement or a very subtle shift in your weight, depending on how you are positioned.

    Articulations. From this grounded space, what words come to mind. Try not to edit yourself. Just say the first words that come to mind. Say them outloud so that they are captured by the device. Don’t worry at first about capturing a good recording, just let the words flow. Once you know what they are, pick up your sound recorder and say the same words again clearly into the microphone.

    Colour. What colour association do you make or feel as you occupy this space? Does the colour have a sound? Does the mood produced by the colour have a sound? Make a sound offering into the microphone, a squeal, song, gurgle, scream … be free
    Immediate concentric circle. From this specific place, take your camera and move slowly around your location in 360 degrees. This is the immediate circle and site of “home”. Move slowly so that you can notice details around you.

    Concentric Circles. Travel with your mind in concentric circles starting with the closest circle and moving out further and further like the skin of an onion. Name what is there and what it means for you, what is its significance, personal, political, contemporary, historical, futurological.

    First sound. Leaving the center of your circle, go towards one of the sounds that you noticed during your deep listening. Get as close as possible to it and press record. Try to record that sound for at least 2 minutes without interruption and, if possible, without ambient interruptions

    Found instrument. Find two objects within and around this site which can produce distinct sound and “play”. For instance, a wire scraped on a bench, or a tin can on the cement ground. Play your instrument while the recorder is set on the ground in a set location and record for at least 2 minutes. Let yourself record both distinct “hits” of the instrument as well as experiments in rhythm.

    Credits

    Concept, Lead ArtistsHYENAZ, Jova Lynne
    Field Recordings, Videos & PerformanceHYENAZ, Jova Lynne
    Sound DesignHYENAZ
    Video EditHYENAZ
    SupportGoethe-Institut

  • Paula Temple – Gegen (I Want to Move HYENAZ Edit)

    The HYENAZ edit of Paula Temple’s techno classic “Gegen” was been featured in the Electronic Beats “Right to Assemble!” playlist, which explores music as an agent of change. Read more: https://www.electronicbeats.net/right-to-assemble-sounds/

    So many assumptions are made about why people choose to move, who has the right to move, and who does not, who can simply travel on a whim and who must risk everything to leave their lands for others. Our sense of time and space is increasingly unbounded, as access to knowledge, art and the public sphere shared through electronically mediated communication. Yet so many still have to risk death or internment to cross national borders physically, with access to migration arbitrarily determined by pieces of paper distributed along class and racial lines.

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    HYENAZ were inspired by Paula’s powerful track Gegen, whose title refers to the German word for “against” and already expresses the dichotomous terms in which media and political discourses discuss migration: Are you for or against migration? How do “we” oppose the “others” who are against “our” way of life. The urgency of its siren-like lead synth speaks to the militarised policing of national borders and the desperation that pushes people to risk everything in order to exercise the human right to move freely.

    Paula Temple released her track ‘Gegen’ via her imprint Noise Manifesto in 2014, at a time the German term was being widely used by protesters during an upheaval of asylum seekers in Germany. 

    “As refugees are fleeing for their lives, it is shocking we are creating similar conditions and hateful rhetoric as what happened in 1930s pre-WWII for political gain,” explained Temple in an official statement. “My personal hope is in our efforts to diminish the climate of hate with an overwhelming climate of empathy.”

    Credits

    Original TrackPaula Temple
    TextMad Kate
    Vocal EditingAdrienne Teicher
    Vocals Recording & MasteringBartłomiej Kuźniak (Studio333)